A New Adventure!: The Big Arrival!

Birthday: January 3rd, 2012 (Same date as his Great Uncle John and Big Cousin David Hemple)
Name: Elijah (Eli for short) Jason Poitras
Time of Birth: 2:35am
Birth Weight: 7 lbs, 1 oz So happy he was a small one
Birth Length: 20.5" Long (he's so little I love him to bits)
Special Features: He has his mothers Bum Chin (which we both got from Grandpa Wiesel) and football shoulders. He also has incredibly long feet and fingers I can't wait to see how he grows into all of it.
The Labour: Started early labour on New Years Eve, on New years day Morning I had spotting and still mild contractions, I went to church and celebrated the day with the family eating delicious prime rib. By 1am the next day (Jan. 2nd) the contractions were getting worse but were only 7mins apart and I could still sleep so that's what I did, by 3am they were getting closer together and more painful (still not bad compared to later on that day) so I informed Chris (who was working nights and wouldn't be home till 7am, that maybe he should see about coming home a little earlier. His boss sent him home right away so at 4am I was awake and ready to go. Instead of going straight to the hospital though, (cause although they were 5mins apart now) I decided our house was messy and needed to be cleaned before we left. 2 hours later we head down to the hospital. When I get there I was only .5 cm dilated so they were debating on sending me home, but instead they said to go walk around for an hour, come back and we'll check you again. By the time I came back I was at 1.5 almost 2 cm so they admitted me into the hospital for delivery. Things were slow moving, so at 4pm they broke my water, quickly after that the contractions became much worse and alot more frequent (sadly causing me to get sick all over the floor). After awhile I got some Demerol for the pain (which does nothing but make you sleepy and hate your life even more), and waited about maybe an hour before begging for the epidural, which i was determined not to get (only cause I'm scared of big scary needles, not because I was trying to do it without drugs). Then 1 simple word to describe the next part of labour HEAVEN. No pain at all we just hung out in the room and chatted with the nurses having a good time, then the end came... the contractions were getting worse again and closer together (I could feel them now even with the epidural), and the one nurse said it was time to start pushing.... sadly she was mistaken.... apparently when checked by the other nurse I still had a little bit of cervix left, that if it didn't dilate I would require a c-section (after coming so far I wasn't about to give up now) so I try a different position, more breathing and check again. The nurse once again says the heads right there, we need to start pushing... Yeah... time to go.... nope not quite... still had a little bit of cervix in there.... so another repositioning another 15mins (seemed like MUCH longer then that) and we were FINALLY able to begin pushing. They gave me laughing gas to breath in during contractions so the pain wasn't so bad (apparently I got really high, almost passed out and woke up laughing historically saying "damn you Much Music". I remember going through this whole Music Video type scenario in my head and actually thought it had happened when I woke up (apparently it had not). I also thought that while I was all high that I had already had the baby and it was all over... that would have been too easy. Sadly to my dismay when I came out of the high.... it was time to do the ACTUAL pushing... 30mins of pushing and (felt like I was taking the biggest dump of my life, and happily I did not take a dump which was a big fear of mine lol) our beautiful baby boy had finally arrived. My mom had the opportunity to cut the umbilical chord, (Chris can't really handle that stuff and gladly gave that honour to my mom) and Chris and I were proud as can be. I was so happy to have my mom in there with me along with my Husband, it was just a wonderful experience to have the 2 most supportive ppl in my life by my side during the most painful and beautiful moments of my life.

The First Day: Well seeing as we had him so early in the morning, I didn't get to go to sleep until 5am and was woken up periodically for feeding, holding (to keep his temperature up) visits from doctors and nurses. By 10 am Chris and I had fully woken up and were ready to start the day having TONS of visitors which we loved having and getting to share our little bundle of joy with all our family and friends. It was a very busy day but little Eli was calm all day being passed from arm to arm and just cuddling close to everyone with barely any fussing. By 9pm the last of the visitors (my parents and uncle Neil) had left and Chris and I just layed in my bed enjoying the quiet time with our little bundle.


Loving being held by daddy, and all 3 of us took a little cat nap on my little bed. BEST moment ever!!!

The first night: Well after our precious little family moment... the stress began. Being perfect all day made it IMPOSSIBLE to sleep at night. I had sent Chris home to sleep in our bed last night (he had been up for 36hrs without sleep when Eli was born so he needed an actual goodnights sleep and since he can't do much at night right now but listen to the cries, I sent him home, after bringing me some food of course :oP ) We gave him a bath before Chris left and I began feeding... but unfortunately he just didn't want to eat or sleep. So when 2 am rolled around and he still wouldn't sleep the nurses helped me and took him out of the room (i felt like a horrible mother but I was exauhsted and stressed and was barely coherent at this point, honestly the night was a blur) so i could get a couple hours of sleep before his next feeding. At 4:30, he was crying and ready to feed but unfortunately I could not get him to stop crying long enough to get him to eat long enough to feed properly. When he would fall asleep and I'd lay him down I had about 5 mins before he'd be crying again and I'd be starting all over trying to give him more food (cause he definitely hadn't eaten enough) at 6 am they came in to take his blood work and I never thought I'd say this, but he cried so much it actually tuckered him out and we both finally fell asleep (with him cuddled in my arms) till around 8 when the nurse came in to check on us both. I was then able to put him in bed and we both had a good sleep. Since then he's basically been sleeping (he woke up once for his first official GOOD feeding YAY and diaper changing) and I've been able to blog to you all about the events. We've also been discharged by the Doctor and are just patiently waiting and relaxing for his exhausted daddy to come pick us up. Where the continued adventure can begin at home. I'm terrified for tonight... but hopefully the feeding can continue like this morning and we can progress a little smoother. We'll see. In the meantime here our some more photos from our first day together including this morning as I write this.
Pictures:


New Years Eve, my second last night of pregnancy, the last belly photo.

After Delivery being held by my Great Aunt Iva, with Grandma in the background

After Delivery

After deliver being held by my big cousin Kennedy

After delivery being held by my Big Cousin Sam who had a slight cough but with a mask was happy to hold him.
(The whole family stayed as late as they could and some until the he was actually born to meet the little guy, I'm so happy to have a loving and supportive family by my side)